


even as the world goes on its wicked way

by jonesyyy



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Siblings, Astrophysics, Autistic Nastya Rasputina, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Stargazing, The Cain Instinct, badly explained astrophysics, emotional jonny rights, i don't know how to tag, i may have made them both autistic... im projecting, nastya and jonny met a lot younger and grew up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24387358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesyyy/pseuds/jonesyyy
Summary: i will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.- lemony snicket, the beatrice lettersthis is a messy little au for if jonny and nastya met when they were much younger and were raised as siblings ft. the cain instinct, hiding in tunnels, playfighting, actual fighting, extensialism due to looking at space and found family nonsense.i wrote most of it listening to 'ode to the bridge builder' off the world of goo soundtrack. enjoy!
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina, Nastya Rasputina & The Aurora
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72





	even as the world goes on its wicked way

Sometimes, it took crawling deep into the underbelly of the Aurora for Nastya to know she was truly alone. Dr Carmilla didn’t take as much care of the ship as she should, and Jonny was usually distracted or just didn’t care, so when all the thoughts in her head got too loud and her hands started shaking,she could just slip away. The untamed, untravelled insides of the Aurora were full of maintenance passages and console rooms, collections of little flickering lights like indoor stars. It was always quiet there, save for the placid hum of the Aurora. One day, she’d look after Aurora, her ship, her Aurora, properly. She’d resolder all the joints and check all the cables were correctly insulated and clean the motherboards with isopropyl alcohol (Dr Carmilla probably had some, somewhere). She liked that thought.

\---

‘Nastya, I’m sorry, I promise- I didn’t mean to-’

Tears stung in the corner of Jonny’s eyes. He wouldn’t cry. Jonny D’Ville does not cry. He doesn’t. But his throat was raw and scratchy and squeaking out the words hurt, and the look on Nastya’s face (of disbelief and shock and frustration) just kept making it worse. He is not going to cry. He hadn’t meant to break anything, especially the violin - although it wasn’t all of the violin, just a single string, which must be fixable, surely, he could find some strings somewhere - he just wanted to follow Nastya up to wherever she was going and see what she was so excited about. Of course it was going to be boring and full of science like everything Nastya liked, but he still wanted to see it. 

Nastya should never have let Jonny come up, should have kicked him out of the vent repair shaft with a steel toed boot, but he was an insistent little brat and she knew if she’d tried to push him out he’d wriggle back up or latch onto her leg with his teeth or something idiotic like that. And besides, she wondered if Jonny would like the peace. He didn’t seem like someone who needed peace, but maybe you had to ask to make sure.

\---

‘Can you hear it?’ She was curled up against the clumps of complicated circuitry embedded in the walls of the maintenance shaft, drinking in the silence.

‘Goddamnit, Nastya, I can’t hear anything. It’s quiet as the dead in here.’

‘That’s the point, Jonny. You never just sit down and listen to anything. Always rushing about, backwards and forwards-’

‘Hey!’

‘Like a little ant. In an ant colony. Here and there, there and here, never listening, just running and yelling-‘

‘That is not fair.’ Jonny pauses, and slumps down against the tunnel wall to stretch his legs.

‘Isn’t it nice? We feel like the only people in the world.’

‘Nastya, that’s terrifying.’ He smiles the cocky grin Nastya’s seen on his face a thousand bloody times. ‘It is quiet up here, though.’

Before Nastya has any time to wipe the smug little smile off his face, Jonny is poking her in the legs with his wannabe cowboy boots she hates - he’s never ridden a horse! He’s never seen a horse! And of course Nastya takes off the violin case she was carrying on her back and puts it down gently on the metal floor so she can dive at Jonny and push him down to the floor, giggling with delight. Dr Carmilla always gives them a disapproving sigh when they get like this, bickering and wrestling in the long halls of the Aurora, trying not to knock over any important lab equipment or accidentally press any buttons, because they’d never see the end of it, Nastya thinks, very literally. But it’s just her and Jonny now, separate from everything, and she stops thinking about all of that as Jonny flings his knees up, knocking the wind out of her and tossing her to the side. 

‘You little bastard!’ she snaps with mock rage at Jonny who is curled up against the wall laughing to himself. 

‘You always fall for that!’ he cackles, ‘Always!’ 

Nastya grabs him by the waistcoat with a roar and drags him along the floor so she can plant her hands on his shoulders and wrestle with him as Jonny taunts her. She’s done with his insufferable giggling by now and picks him up by the waist and attempts to carry him under her arm while he squirms. 

‘I wonder how far I can throw you, Jonny! How far do you reckon?’

Jonny squeals and wriggles out of Nastya’s grasp, used to holding screwdrivers and clamps in place and, as it turns out, pretty efficient on a feral little teenager. Nastya may be a little stronger physically - she’s older, taller, bigger - but Jonny is devilishly fast and fantastically annoying. He’s trying to pull himself along the floor while Nastya grapples his legs to yank him back, across to the discarded violin case. 

The violin case is black. Proper, deep black, black like space, with clasps made from refined Cyberian steel. Handmade. The violin itself was imported by her father as an eleventh birthday present from somewhere far off, somewhere Nastya likes to imagine is beautiful, because the violin is beautiful. She does not remember the birthday party, but she remembers the violin, and the smell of the wood like nothing else she’s ever smelt before, the weight in her hands, the way its shine reflects the sunlight like liquid gold. She used to play it in her plush, carpeted bedroom, feeling the sound bounce off the curved walls while she spun round in circles until the dizziness made her feel sick and she flopped down on the floor, watching the world spin around her. It smells like home, when home was still there.

Nastya can see Jonny scrambling for the violin case, and her breath catches, but she stills it and breathes carefully. No, Jonny wouldn’t break it. He’s not that careless or inconsiderate, she’d like to think. She’s still keeping a firm hand around Jonny’s ankle when he grabs the violin case and wraps his arm around it, close to his body, and Nastya fights to control her own breathing, heart thumping in her chest. 

‘Not funny, Jonny. This is not funny anymore.’

‘You still want to chuck me when I’m holding this, huh? Didn’t think so- oh- oh shit-’ The case clatters to the floor. It lands with a dull thump.

‘Look, I said I was sorry, okay? It’s just a string, we can fix it, and it wasn’t even my fault, goddamnit, you pulled me-’ The look on Nastya’s face makes Jonny want to be sick. She is kneeling on the floor over the violin case, knuckles white with tension and face steely and cold. The violin is beautiful, and when Nastya picks it up she holds it with such care and love, her cold hands so gentle, light and graceful over the dark wood. Jonny tries to shake his head to clear the brimming tears away, tries to hide his face from Nastya’s gaze over the violin and over him, slowly shuffling away from her. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Just shut up, Jonny, just- shut up, okay? I hate you! I hate you so much! I wish you were a machine so I could cut you open and ruin and scramble everything and pull all the wires out so you never turn on again- because all you do is ruin everything! I wish you’d never ever saved me or whatever so you wouldn’t ruin me as well!’

Jonny stops dead in his tracks. Fuck. The brimming tears in his eyes are overflowing now. He cringes, feeling the tears make salty tracks down his face. He wants to scream, to tear this whole place apart, to run away and never come back. But that’s just what he does, isn’t it? He ruins everything. And Nastya looks so honest, so cool and precise, that he can’t help it, and the tears are falling again, coming thick and fast down his face.

‘Do… do you really mean that?’

The Aurora hums around Nastya. This is her own world, her own tiny world away from everything, and now Jonny is in it with her, crying at the other end of the corridor. She’s never seen Jonny cry before. He looks so tiny, with all his fear, his anger stripped away - the shield of heartlessness and uncaring that he wraps around himself is gone. He’s shaking a little bit. Nastya puts the violin back in its case, watches the dim light dance off it, and closes the case, shutting the clasps one by one, making sure they’re secure. Jonny looks bitter and hurt and ashamed when Nastya steps towards him, slowly and carefully, like she’s approaching a wounded, angry beast. She puts two hands out to him, and Jonny gives her a hurt look in return.

‘You’re right. I don’t mean that.’

Nastya doesn’t quite know how to comfort Jonny, when he’s standing in front of her, face puffy and red with tears he’s desperately trying to ignore, incoherently mumbling apologies to himself, but she’s going to try. She opens up her arms and Jonny seems to collapse to lean into her chest and Nastya wraps her arms awkwardly around him, little teardrops getting on her black shirt. They stand there, silently and awkwardly, for a few seconds. Suddenly, Nastya breaks free and darts across the corridor to hastily pick up her violin and swing it over her shoulder. Jonny scowls for a second (Nastya can see a comeback forming in his brain), but she grabs him by the wrist, grinning widely.

‘Jonny, I have something to show you.’  
And Nastya is off, sprinting down the little tunnel, boots thumping against the metal floor, but somehow Jonny manages to get composure and begins to chase after her just before she turns the corner and out of sight. He just about catches up to her when one of the corridors ends in a ladder down a few meters to another tiny, labyrinthine, one of Nastya’s apparent favourite new places (Nastya herself can’t stand straight in them and has to crawl most of the way, but she’s far taller than Jonny) and she grasps his wrist firmly while they go down, deeper and deeper into who-knows-where in the Aurora. 

‘Where- ow, fuck!’ Jonny winces after running face first into a dangling clump of cables that came loose from the ceiling, ‘Where the hell are we going?’

‘You’ll have to mind your head. I don’t go here often and I don’t think anyone else has in years, so it is not clean and organized. I will fix that, though! At some point.’ 

‘Nastya, where the hell are we even going on this wild little goose chase of yours?’ Jonny stumbles forward while talking as Nastya leads him round another bend in the tunnels ‘ -and could you slow down please?’

‘Oh! Alright. We’re going to somewhere I found on Aurora. It makes me feel happy, and you were sad, so I’m going to show you, so you can feel happy.’

‘Oh.’

‘Is something wrong, Jonny? Do you want to go back?’

‘No, I just- Thank you.’

Jonny takes a moment while Nastya leads him through this maze at a less breakneck pace to actually take a look at where they are. He can roughly guess where they are in the Aurora, but he’s never seen these tunnels before, and never heard Dr Carmilla mention them, and they look untravelled for years - the walls (hardly walls, just clutters of technology he doesn’t understand but Nastya would have lots of fancy things to say about) are thick with dust in places and stray wires litter the floors (a bloody tripping hazard), not to mention that they’re hardly navigable or make any sense (access shafts, apparently. Jonny would be hard pushed to say he knows anything about spaceships or the access of one, but these certainly don’t seem like a normal working environment on a ship, far too cramped and weird - Jonny can’t even see what on earth they’re supposed to access.) But it’s not like the rest of the Aurora, or the people and people adjacent things living on it, were any less weird, so Jonny makes his peace with it and drops down into a crawl to squeeze through a particularly small hatch.

‘This is it.’

They must be standing somewhere in the outer edges of the Aurora, because a whole, curved wall of this room, as well as the ceiling, is a window out onto space. It is really quite pretty, so pretty it punches the breath out of him, seeing all of this black void speckled with stars and swept through with glowing strands of nebulae through his own teary eyes, light that took hundreds and thousands of years to reach here, and the Aurora, and Jonny and Nastya, sitting in a secret room gazing back out. There’s so much stuff out there. Nastya, now sitting down on the floor, offers an arm out to him, and she pulls him close to her shoulder where he rests his head and curls up his legs close to him, eyes fixed to the outside.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Yeah. I mean, wow. It’s.. it’s a lot.’

‘A lot of people say that if space was truly infinite, then space should not be dark. Because if space is infinite, there are infinitely many stars, and infinite light that travels in an infinite galaxy, then when any person looks at space, they are always looking at a star, and space will always be white.’

Jonny curls closer to Nastya while she talks, listening to her breathing.

‘But those people are wrong, and assume the universe is static, when in fact the universe was born very small and expanded due to something or other. The sky is dark and proves this, because light travelling from far away stars shifts with the expansion of the universe and gets longer, meaning it stops becoming light we see and becomes microwaves or something. So the sky is dark. And maybe, even, when the universe is older and older, the stars will be so far apart that any light will shift red and invisible before it can reach us, and space will be completely dark again.’

‘Don’t you think that’s scary, Nastya?’

Nastya thinks to herself for a second and hums. ‘No. I like it.’

‘Why? If the world is so big and just keeps getting bigger, then nothing really means everything, does it? Things mean even less! Because everything is tiny and getting smaller and smaller compared to the big old nothing! You said the universe could be infinitely big, yeah?’  
‘Yes.’

‘Then aren’t we just infinitely small? And then what does love and hate and fear and anger and secret tunnels mean? Because last week when you were trying to do maths or something, and I was being a pain in the arse, you said that if things are infinitely small, they’re so close to being nothing that you just call them as nothing.’

Nastya likes sitting here and thinking. Just thinking. She only comes up here sometimes, as if to savour the feeling of peace here, to bask in light that’s travelled so far to her that it’s almost invisible. Now Jonny is here and isn’t far from being curled up on her lap (although he’d kill her if she acknowledged it). He’s also thinking, and through her arm that’s wrapped around Jonny, she can feel the quiet tick of his heart, the pistons moving almost silently save for the rush of blood against them. Nastya pulls him a little closer to herself.

‘I don’t think so. I think everything matters.

Sometimes I sit here and I look out and I remember that there’s so many people out there all with their own feelings and fears and possessions and friends and pets, but each one of them matters, to themselves and to their friends, and when they’re scared or angry or happy, then of course the universe doesn’t care, but they do, so it matters, right? And I care about you, Jonny, and I care about Aurora, and that matters. Maybe it doesn’t matter to people billions of miles away, but it matters to me.’

‘Do you mean that, Nastya?

‘Of- of course!’

Jonny doesn’t know what to do - no-one’s ever said something like that to him, and he’s scared he doesn’t deserve it, or Nastya is wrong, or he’s tricked her in some horrible and insidious way into trusting him and caring about him, so he hides his face in her collar like a little child. He’d be ashamed of it, but Nastya just wraps her arms tighter around him until he can almost feel her breathing - he doesn’t want to look at the endless, beautiful sky, or at Nastya’s face, it’s too much for him, too much world.

‘Why?’

‘Why what, Jonny?’

‘Why- why do you care about me?’

‘Because you’re my little brother, Jonny.’

‘I mean, is that really true, Nastya? That’s just what the bloody good doctor said, and I thought we said, we agreed together that we wouldn’t listen to her, that we wouldn’t do what she wanted! We- we- we’re not really related at all. We don’t even look anything like each other.’

‘I don’t care. Whatever Dr Carmilla says, I don’t mind. I care about you because I want to. You’re not my little brother because of genetics or weird science or whatever, you’re my little brother because I want to care about you and I want to look out for you. Is that how it works? Also you’re crushing my leg.’

Jonny shifts his weight and wriggles into Nastya’s lap properly, still not looking up from where he’s planted his face into her shoulder.  
‘What do you mean, how it works?’

‘Is that how siblings work? I’m sorry, I still don’t really get - actual people. People made of flesh and blood and - goopy bits.’

‘Do we still even count as normal people? I mean, really-’

‘So we can do whatever we want! I want to be your big sister, if it’s ok with you. Of course, only if it's fine with you, I wouldn’t want to-’

Jonny sighs and muffles a laugh into Nastya’s coat.  
‘Of course. I like that.’

And they do feel like the only two people in this massive universe, this universe full of things they won’t ever understand or get close to understanding, but who gives a shit. Jonny does not see the deep and endless void of space or hear the noise of stars exploding and planets colliding, but he sees the black of Nastya’s coat and hears her steady breathing and feels her gently running her hands across his back like an anchor back to the world, their world, with just the two of them - no doctors or octokittens or anything - just them. Jonny has decided he quite likes that idea.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked this! it's my first ever fic thats not warrior cats fanclans from 6 years ago, and it may be a little nonsensical. come find me in the mechscord and yell at me if you have stuff to say!
> 
> im just soft for nastya.


End file.
